The Gilligan Factor - Part Four

Well, well, well, the Prime Minister has been so taken by this little blog that he has decided to join in. We are honoured, sir. But is it the real Kevin Rudd or a cheap Chinese copy? Is there any difference? Will Malcolm Turnbull demand reciprocal blog time? Are we now to become a vehicle for celebrities who like to “slum it” in popular working class public service programmes to prove they are “still just ordinary guys, you know.” Are we seriously suggesting this blog is a popular working class public service programme? Are we even suggesting this blog is popular?

Never the less, there are good folk in trouble and we must attend to them. Mayor Porker will be ignored no longer. She has been forced into a dark shaft by Bart Rugarse who dithered for simply ages over which of them should go down the ladder first. Should Mayor Porker descend first and have the opportunity to hide in the dark and then ambush Bart as he climbs down? Or should Bart go first and risk Mayor Porker running away when she was left on her own? To resolve the conflict Bart is forced to insist we continue this story from a point where they are already both at the bottom of the shaft.


MAYOR PORKER’S GROUP.

Mayor Porker: That was typically gutless Bart. What’s wrong? Frightened to make a fool of your self again?

Bart Rugarse: Don’t push me, Porky. When I was flying out of the top of that Deathdozer I swore to get even with you and during the weeks in traction I swore a lot more. It wouldn’t take much to get me to shoot your toes off just for the laugh – except now I find we are unfortunately on the same side. The irony is killing me.

Mayor Porker: You and I would never be on the same side, Rugarse.

Bart Rugarse: As personalities, no, but tactically we are obliged to cooperate this time Porky. This is an instruction from the highest level I can assure you. To consolidate our newfound companionship I shall put away this gun, which is, in any case, not loaded. I warn you though, if you try to take advantage and attack me I will bleed profusely and that may ruin your clothes. It has been my job to locate you and bring you here. There is a door to your right, Mayor Porker, please go through - there is no danger.

Mayor Porker: What the fuck is going on, Rugarse?

(Just as Mayor Porker and Bart Rugarse appear to be getting to the start of a really good argument there is a disturbance above and Ann Appuladay climbs down to join them.)

Ann Appuladay: I’m pleased to see you’re okay, Mayor Porker. Ah, Bret, the Prime Minister told me to tell you he is going to use the north entry. He needs to clean up and then he will meet us all in the briefing room.

Mayor Porker: Ann, maybe you can tell me what’s happening. Where’s the rest of your group? And what’s this about the Prime Minister? Oh God! Help me Ann, my head is starting to disappear up my own arse here!

Bart Rugarse: I can assure you Porky, Ann is almost as confused as you are but if you’ll both follow me I’m sure we can sort it all out.

(Bart opens the side door and walks through. Mayor Porker and Ann Appuladay look at each other for a moment then shrug and follow him.)


MOWER’S GROUP.

(Dicky Mower, Lizzie, Luke and Winnie have followed the Bogan Kids into a gap in the rubble. They then scramble down a narrow sloping shaft until they come to a dim corridor. Mower calls a halt and speaks to the kids.)

Mower: Look guys, we can’t keep calling you Kid 1, 2 and 3. What are your names?

Kid 1: Fair enough. I’m Gabriella but you can call me Gabby – I’m the smart one. Kid 2 is Cinderella and we call her Scorch. Kid 3 is Citronella also known as Dave.

Lizzie: Gabby and Scorch are girls?

Gabby: Yeah, so is Dave. Why? What did you think we was?

Mower: And, Gabby, you’re the smart one. Is that right?

Gabby: Yeah. I’ve got an IQ of 196. It used to be 105 but I kept letting the social workers tyres down till she upped it. Now I can read The Iliad in the original Greek and help my old man fill out his Centrelink forms.

Luke: Well that’s all sorted out then. I was beginning to think this was complicated.

Mower: Just one more thing, do you think it would be better if Luke and I took charge of the weapons?

Gabby: No.

Scorch: Nix.

Dave: Fuck off.

Mower: Okaaaay. Lead on girls.

(For fifteen minutes the group picks its way through rubble strewn corridors and then, just ahead, the tunnel is filled with light from an opening in the side wall. When they reach the opening they can see they are in a kind of high gallery with a view down onto a vast factory floor. Hundreds of Chinese are scurrying about looking chaotically purposeful. Some appear to be pushing ore trucks along narrow gauge tracks and generally behaving like miners. Others swarm around huge crushing and grading machines. A particular group of Chinese individuals seem to be observing the activities with great interest and beside this group a futuristic looking vehicle is waiting. It looks like a small bullet train and obviously runs on the gleaming steel single rail laid across the factory floor and off into the darkness. After a final glance around, the Chinese dignitaries climb aboard the vehicle.)

Gabby: Keep low. They can’t really see us up here but there’s no sense in taking risks. Just watch the train. I’ve seen it before and it’s amazing.

(There is a shouted command from the bullet train and six metal bars, three on each side, extend from the sides of the vehicle. On a second command twelve semi-naked Chinamen run from the shadows and take up station at the bars. There are two Chinamen to each bar and, following a third command, they all bend to their task and heave against the dead weight of the vehicle. Within moments the train is up to running speed and, propelled by twelve sets of pounding bare feet, it quickly disappears into the distant gloom.)

Luke: That is the most stupid thing I have ever seen! They’ve got a train that looks like a space ship and they can’t even fit a steam engine on it. They are actually pushing the blessed thing - how primitive is that?

Gabby: And that is exactly the dumb-arsed mistake most other Australians would make. Have a think about it. What is China’s cheapest source of energy? It’s manpower innit? The train runs on an almost frictionless rail and it only takes a few blokes pushing it to be able to travel round a small island like this at a respectable speed. Those blokes only push it for a short distance and then they hang on those bars like bloody monkeys until the train slows and then they give it another boost. That train can run all day on a few bottles of water and a bag of rice. You tell me what Australian engine is as efficient as that.

Luke: Well, I suppose if you put it like….

Gabby (ignoring Luke): It’s like roads. If we need a few kilometres of new road in Bogan we go through months of tendering and fiddling until some politician’s mate gets the job. We go through a year or two of fucking chaos while it’s built and then it opens six months late and just in time for it to close for scheduled maintenance. In China, on the other hand, the word goes out on the radio and six million Chinese turn up with their hand woven shopping baskets. Three months later you’ve got five hundred kilometres of new road. So – you can feel sorry for the poor little down trodden Chinese prole all you want to but don’t take the piss out of China. They just might build a Southeast Asian by-pass over Australia quicker than we could scramble our six fighter jets.

Mower: Where does this gallery lead?

Scorch: I was down there yesterday. About ten minutes from here there’s a grill and you can see into a big room where the Chinese have some of their meetings. When there’s no bugger around I sneak in to get our food. They store stacks of grub and plenty of drinks in there.

Mower: What do they talk about?

Scorch: Fucked if I know. It’s all in foreign talk.

Mower: Let’s take a look. Lead the way, Scorch.


THE PORKER AND APPULADAY GROUPS.

(Mayor Porker and Ann Appuladay follow Bart Rugarse into a large room tastefully furnished if your taste is for orange plastic and chipped chrome. The room looks a bit like a 1970’s works canteen. Sitting around the room in various attitudes of boredom are Porky and Ann’s companions.)

Sean Bean: Ah! The wandering menstrual returns. How are you Porky? And I see you are accompanied by the poison dwarf, Ann. It’s good to see you both – not. Now will someone kindly explain why I am being held in this dreadful and squalid chamber? I have been patient, I really have, but sometimes a man simply has to speak up. So come on you pack of dag-encrusted arseholes, what the fuck is the story here.

(While Sean is whining a second door opens and Kevin Rudd enters. He is dressed in a cartoon golfer costume complete with chequered plus fours, primrose sweater and garish tam-o-shanter. He glares at Sean with obvious contempt.)

Kevin Rudd: Well that rather depends on the sort of stories you like doesn’t it? I don’t know who you are but I’m sure everyone here has been most impressed, as I have, with your colourful vocabulary. Perhaps you might now honour us with a virtuoso display of farting and belching or something equally sophisticated? Bart, kindly get rid of this odious little man.

(Amid a bedlam of foul language Sean Bean is forced out of the room by Bart Rugarse gleefully assisted by Shizeknicker. Kevin Rudd waits with a pained expression on his face until the noise dies down.)

Kevin Rudd: Ladies and Gentlemen, I must profusely apologise for the shameful way you have been treated today. I must also apologise for my rather unusual get-up. As you might imagine being Prime Minister involves me in some pretty secret matters, some too secret to be shared even with my own wife. On occasions like this my security people supply me with an alibi that I am obliged to use because all alibis interlock, or so I am told. My wife hates this sort of nonsense and when I told her I was off on a golf weekend, a sport she knows I detest, she packed this for me and only this. So there you are.

Mayor Porker: I’m sure I speak for us all Prime Minister when I say we harbour no ill will toward you but if you could just explain why you’ve brought us here we would be very grateful.

Kevin Rudd: Why I brought you here? My dear mayor Porker I can assure you it was none of my doing. I was hoping you could explain your presence to me. In fact, until I saw you all on the security monitors today and Bart told me who you were it hadn’t crossed my mind that I would have the opportunity to ask anyone for help. But I did see you and I do need your help most urgently, if not for me then for Australia. Will you help? Please.

(The Bogan councillors look at each other. Bemused, fearful and confused, most of them can think of no suitable reply. Ann Appuladay seems to collect her wits first.)

Ann Appuladay: Of course we’ll help. What do you need, Prime Minister?

(Kevin Rudd nods as though the answer was exactly as expected. He begins to pace the room thinking deeply and carefully considering his next words.)

Kevin Rudd: What I am about to tell you will surprise and even shock you. But it is necessary that you know the complete truth. I have made up my mind to come clean, as it were, so I might as well start now.

I came to Australia in 1965 from the Pon Dang province of Communist China; I was ten years old. My real name is Chiang Fuk Ho and I am a Chinaman. From the age of sixteen I was groomed for political infiltration of The Australian Labor Party. I have had plastic surgery to change the shape of my eyes but other than that and the rather obvious wig I required no other physical alteration.
My Chinese controller gave me the name ‘Kevin Rudd” despite my protests. I had great difficulty for a long time with the ‘R’ sound. So much so, it became a standing joke and my controller devised a special recognition phrase – “Melly Clistmus, Missuh Ludd” – that he used whenever he had instructions for me. Even now just thinking that phrase makes my blood run cold because it means I am obliged to serve The Dragon at no matter what cost.
For years I travelled a path mapped by Beijing but eventually it became too dangerous to use a controller so I was allowed to go my own way. As long as that way continues to serve the interests of my homeland, China will not risk further direct control.
Then a strange thing happened to me; I suddenly became an Australian. I don’t know when I first realised it, but one day the interests of Australia were more important to me than Chinese ambition. Shortly after that I became Prime Minister of Australia and my loyalty to this land and its people became absolute. It has been difficult steering a course that enhances Australian interests whilst appearing to favour China but I have managed it fairly successfully – until now.

(Kevin Rudd pauses and sits on the edge of a table. He appears dejected and seems to be anticipating – wanting – a storm of recrimination. To suggest that his audience were stunned would be a bit like saying a pole-axed cow had been slightly jostled in a queue at the supermarket checkout. The Bogan councillors are in extreme shock and almost catatonic as a result. Some nod and others shake their head depending on which bit of the revelation they are trying to corkscrew through their brains. They all have their mouths open and all eyes are riveted to the slumped figure in the silly golf suit. After a long, long silence Lizzie is the first to speak.)

Lizzie: Um…..so…. you wear a wig?

Kevin Rudd: What? Oh….. yes, it’s a wig. Here, take a look.

(He drags off his wig and tosses it onto Lizzie’s lap. She recoils and lifts her arms in horror as if someone has just thrown a live panther onto her lap. The wig is limp and Lizzie can clearly see the frayed label inside. It states:

100% BLI-NYLON.
Do not dly clean.
Hind wash only in hot soppy watel.
MADE IN CHINA.

Lizzie looks up at the head she has admired, loved even, for so long. The perfect hair has gone but it has left behind a perfect shape. Kevin Rudd’s head looks like a nippleless tit. He is completely bald.)

Mayor Porker: Prime Minister, I sense something else has changed. Something even more….. um, mind numbing than the things you have already told us. Forgive me but I’m having a lot of trouble absorbing…..

Kevin Rudd: Yes, Mayor Porker. Something else has changed.

Mayor Porker: And am I right in saying that this ‘something else’ represents a great danger to Australia and, in fact, will give us all sleepless nights until the next nail-biting episode of The Gilligan Factor is posted and all is revealed?

Kevin Rudd: Yes, Mayor Porker, you could most certainly say that.


TO BE CONTINUED.